Abstract

In the laboratory, marine worms were fed with a mixture of algae and several aliphatic hydrocarbons for 15 days. After ingestion by the worms, 34.9% of hydrocarbons are found in the faeces and only 3.1% accumulated in the gut. The comparison between the initial mixture and the faeces shows that the worm’s digestive process lead to changes in the distribution of the n-alkane mixture. These changes are different from those only due to physical processes in the experimental conditions. In our experiment, no variation in the distribution of hydrocarbons in faeces with time and no microbial hydrocarbon biodegradation were evidenced. Our results suggest that marine worm feeding can substantially affect the fate of hydrocarbons in the sedimentary marine
ecosystem by predominantly stimulating dissolution processes.

Item Type:

Article

Additional Information:

Thanks to Elsevier editor. The definitive version is available at http://www.sciencedirect.com The original PDF of the article can be found at Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology website : http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022098100003178